Tribe On Wheels

Monday, October 01, 2007

'On The Road': 50 years later

"... there are more than a few places where the author and his friends set down their knapsacks for more than a day and now is a good time to trace Kerouac's road. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of his masterpiece "On the Road," and chances are your local bookstore is stocking the just-published "scroll" version of "On the Road" from Viking Press, which is the book in its raw manuscript form.

Anyone looking to travel in Kerouac's footsteps should start in the Northeast, in his hometown of Lowell, Mass., where he was a football star at Lowell High School. The town frequently appears in his work. His character Doctor Sax lurked around Lowell's old textile mills — now part of the National Park system — and the city served as the backdrop for Kerouac's books "Vanity of Duluoz" and "Visions of Gerard."

[ ... ]

It took Lowell awhile to embrace Kerouac, but the town now readily promotes their most famous son. Don't miss the 20th anniversary of "Lowell Celebrates Kerouac," Oct. 4-7. Or take your own walking tour of Kerouac's Lowell. ..."

[ full article ]

Jack Kerouac slept where?

Road trip is a contrast between then and now of Beat writer’s novel

[ full article ]

Shiny side out

Inside the Mind Control Conspiracy

For many years, national security experts, prominent scientists, and probably Dennis Kucinich, have received hundreds of e-mails that begin something like this: “I am surveilled, harassed and gangstalked everywhere I go 24/7/365.”

I’ve certainly received them, and Defense Tech has gotten its fair share, too.

The letters typically state that the person is a victim of an organized mind control plot that involves weapons that beam voices into their head; shoot powerful pain rays at them; and often includes around-the-clock harassment and monitoring. One of the common claims is that the people are targeted by microwave weapons.

What do most people do with these letters? Defense writer William Arkin says he hits the “delete” button when he gets those e-mails. Jon Ronson, author of the wonderfully wacky Men Who Stare at Goats has stated that mind control is an area that he doesn’t “want to get into.” (This from a gifted writer who interviewed a man who believes the world’s leaders are extraterrestrial lizards in disguise.)

What do I do with these letters? I read them, and this Sunday’s Washington Post Magazine has a cover story based on my nearly year-long investigation into their claims.

I try to raise what I think are some fascinating questions about the Pentagon’s involvement in microwave weapons and the auditory effect (which could be used to send sounds or voices into people’s heads).

As for whether there's any evidence that hundreds, if not thousands of people, are being targeted by microwave weapons, well, read for yourself.

-- Sharon Weinberger

P.S. You might also want to reread David Hambling’s fascinating take of recent bio-electromagnetic weapon work here.

[ Link ]

From the mind control mart to an airport near you?

"... The future of U.S. anti-terrorism technology could lie near the end of a Moscow subway line in a circular dungeon-like room with a single door and no windows. Here, at the Psychotechnology Research Institute, human subjects submit to experiments aimed at manipulating their subconscious minds.

Elena Rusalkina, the silver-haired woman who runs the institute, gestured to the center of the claustrophobic room, where what looked like a dentist's chair sits in front of a glowing computer monitor. "We've had volunteers, a lot of them," she said, the thick concrete walls muffling the noise from the college campus outside. "We worked out a program with (a psychiatric facility) to study criminals. There's no way to falsify the results. There's no subjectivism."

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has gone to many strange places in its search for ways to identify terrorists before they attack, but perhaps none stranger than this lab on the outskirts of Russia's capital. The institute has for years served as the center of an obscure field of human behavior study -- dubbed psychoecology -- that traces it roots back to Soviet-era mind control research.

What's gotten DHS' attention is the institute's work on a system called Semantic Stimuli Response Measurements Technology, or SSRM Tek, a software-based mind reader that supposedly tests a subject's involuntary response to subliminal messages. ..."

[ full article ]

Report from Iron Mountain

http://educate-yourself.org/nwo/reportironmountain1.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Report_From_Iron_Mountain

Melancholy Reunion

Excerpts from: 'Melancholy Reunion: A Report from the Future on the Collapse of Civil-Military Relations in the United States'

"... "Melancholy Reunion" picks up where "The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012" left off. The year is now 2017, and two years have elapsed since the countercoup that returned the U.S. government to civilian control. The speaker, addressing the twentieth reunion of the Air University classes of 1997, reflects on the civil-military environment in the late 1990s and the lessons learned from the Coup of 2012.

[ ... ]

The year is 2017. The United States has suffered not only defeats in the High-Tech War of 2007 and the Second Gulf War of 2010, but also a military coup in 2012. That coup, engineered by a highly politicized officer corps that blamed these bloody losses on "incompetent" civilian leaders, was initially welcomed by a public exasperated with elected government. Only a few years of repressive military rule had passed, however, before the countercoup in 2015. The chastened electorate placed the thoroughly disgraced armed forces under draconian civilian control.

The speaker in this essay addresses the twentieth reunion of the Air University classes of 1997, a rather melancholy event under the circumstances. He examines civil-military relations issues emerging in the 1996-1997 time frame that, with the benefit of twenty-first century hindsight, foretold the coming catastrophes.

The speaker argues that too many analysts in the 1990s wrongly concluded that the military's acceptance of shrinking defense budgets and the imposition of social policies on the armed forces "proved" civilian control was secure. Actually, America's still-sizable military, freed from its preoccupation with the Soviet threat, was politicizing rapidly. Still haunted by Vietnam despite the 1991 Gulf War victory, many in uniform believed that military officers needed to be much more active in the political process if "another Vietnam" was to be avoided. Eventually, skill at political infighting, not warfighting, became the mark of up-and-coming officers.

Politicization was hastened by a variety of factors, including the military's institutional drift from warfighting to a complex array of military operations other than war. Overlooked was the fact that officers who concentrate on activities other than war eventually become something other than warriors. Such officers also displace their dedication to the warrior ethic with a cultish devotion to commerce-oriented fads like total quality management.

[ ... ]

Just as the military's politicization was increasing, the nation came under the spell of "postmodern militarism." This phenomenon was not marked by overt military domination or even a societal embrace of martial virtues. Rather, it was characterized by the growing willingness of a militarily naive society to charge those in uniform with responsibilities that a democracy ought to leave to civilians.

The popular military assumed a wide variety of trendy noncombat activities ranging from drug interdiction at home to nation-building abroad, thereby leading to further politicization as the military insinuated itself into areas that were previously the exclusive province of civilian policymakers. All of this occurred as the formal institutions of civilian control--Congress and the executive branch--were losing the public's confidence. These institutions were further weakened by partisan squabbling, and this allowed a politically savvy military to accumulate enormous political clout.

Despite its growing popularity and political power, the professional military increasingly viewed civilian society as irresponsibly chaotic, crime-ridden, and morally corrupt. The alienated military also began to view itself as a higher caste than the society it was supposed to serve.

An increasingly self-righteous military began to see reforming America as its responsibility. This philosophy, termed "neopraetorianism" by the speaker, was abetted by officers infatuated with the idea that they were national ombudsmen with unlimited portfolios as opposed to military leaders with finite responsibilities. Moreover, the armed forces failed to appreciate that it was civil society's largess that insulated the military from the problems that burdened so many civilian communities.

Chaos and crime are the unfortunate by-products of individualism and freedom. However, it is those same qualities that fuel America's enormously successful economy which, in turn, sustains the military. The lesson of the Coup Trials of 2016, therefore, was that officers should not be commanders in the nation's culture wars. It is not the military's role to remake America in its own image.

[ ... ]

The youthful civilian elites who assumed power in the 1990s were wholly innocent of any genuine understanding of the powerful imperatives intrinsic to the armed forces. Moreover, these elites were not antimilitary, despite what many in uniform believed at the time. Of course, few of them considered military people their social or intellectual equals; rather, they viewed the armed forces with the kind of pretentious cordiality usually reserved for faithful servants. What they did appreciate was that the military was extraordinarily competent, and they reveled in the notion that it could do their bidding.

In actuality, both the elites and the public were in the embrace of "postmodern militarism." One writer back in 1994 described this phenomenon as follows:

Postmodern militarism is not marked by overt military dominance or even a societal embrace of martial values. Rather, it is characterized by a growing willingness of an increasingly militarily-naive society to charge those in uniform with responsibilities that a democracy ought to leave to civilians. It is a product of America's deep frustration and disgust with elected government's inability to work effectively, or to even labor honestly. The reason the military's approval rating far exceeds that of every other institution in American society--including, significantly, the ones expected to exercise civilian control--is quite simple: it gets good things done.

Embattled politicians are ever more frequently turning to the military for quick-fixes: Can't stop drugs? Call in the Navy. FEMA overwhelmed? Deploy the Airborne. Crime out of control? Put Guardsmen on the streets. Troubled youths? Marine role models and military boot camps. Need health care? Military medics to the rescue. Diplomats stumble again? Another Air Force mercy mission on the way. The unapologetically authoritarian military can "make the trains run on time," but at what price?

That question was never answered; the national discussion we needed in the 1990s never took place. This was especially unfortunate because the civilian institutions that were supposed to control the military were weakening. Congress' partisanship made it vulnerable to manipulation by politically astute military operatives who became expert at playing congressional factions against each other. The executive branch didn't fare much better. At the beginning of the Clinton administration, for example, there were numerous reports of open contempt by military personnel for their commander in chief. Although many observers believed the initial hostility later dissipated, President Clinton's continued vulnerability was illustrated by the uproar that followed an attempt by his lawyers to characterize him as a member of the armed forces to delay a lawsuit. Moreover, analysts were still asserting in 1996 that Clinton had not yet been able to "command" the Pentagon.

Instead, the military had become, as one commentator put it, "the most powerful individual actor in Washington politics." Part of the reason lay with the fact that the executive and legislative branches both labored under the shadow of Vietnam. Writing in May 1996, A.J. Bacevich of Johns Hopkins University observed the following:

Thirty years later, now elected to positions of prominence, those who evaded service now truckle and fawn to demonstrate the depth of their regard for men in uni-

form. . . . The military itself is only too happy to play along. The moral leverage embedded in "the troops" . . . provides the Pentagon with enormous political clout. Senior military leaders do not hesitate to exploit that clout for their own purposes.

Among military leaders, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is most senior. By the mid-1990s it was clear, as Defense News contended, that the chairman's "rising clout threaten[ed] civilian leaders."

[ ... ]

In actuality, both the elites and the public were in the embrace of "postmodern militarism." One writer back in 1994 described this phenomenon as follows:

Thirty years later, now elected to positions of prominence, those who evaded service now truckle and fawn to demonstrate the depth of their regard for men in uni-

Mission creep: the militarizing of America

From the March 1996 issue of the Progressive Review

"...Perhaps all this isn't so surprising when one examines the real m'tier of a modern major general. It is not, after all, fighting wars -- for there doesn't exist an enemy capable of challenging us. The US defense budget is 120 times the combined strength of the nine next biggest military spenders, and 1,600 times that of six adversarial favorites: Cuba, Syria, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Libya. In truth, the modern major general's trade consists of occupying, managing and manipulating weak and disorganized small countries, not infrequently primarily for domestic political reasons.

This is the trade for which Powell and McCaffrey were trained and helps explains why each feels comfortable in domestic politics. Where easier to practice the civil and psychological operations they mastered than right here at home?

[ ... ]

One of the ways the military conducts its domestic version of psychological and civil operations is to spy on American citizens. As far back the early 40s, for example, Army intelligence kept tabs on the likes of organizer Saul Alinsky. The practice blossomed with the civil rights and peace movements, possibly even, in the view of some investigators, including direct involvement of Army agents in the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

Today, the practice continues albeit in modern garb. According to the Computer Fraud and Security Bulletin, the National Security Agency is already spying on the Internet by "sniffing" data at key router and gateways hosts. NSA is also said to have made deals with Microsoft, Lotus and Netscape to prevent anonymous e-mail or encryption systems on the Net.

And last July, Charles Swett, who works for the Pentagon office handling "special operations and low intensity conflict" wrote an internal memo titled: Strategic Assessment: The Internet. The report, uncovered by the Federation of American Scientists, provides an overview of the Internet, particularly its usefulness for spying on both Americans and foreigners and for spreading disinformation during psychological operations.

[ ... ]

The military's extraordinary role in contemporary civilian life can be traced back at least to the Carter administration. In a July 1983 series in the San Francisco Examiner, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Knut Royce reported that a presidential directive had been drafted by a few Carter administration personnel in 1979 to allow the military to take control of the government for 90 days in the event of an emergency. A caveat on page one of the directive said, "Keeping the government functioning after a nuclear war is a secret, costly project that detractors claim jeopardizes US traditions and saves a privileged few." According to Royce there was a heated debate within the Carter administration as to just what constituted an "emergency."

The issue arose again during the Iran-Contra affair, but even in the wake of all the copy on that scandal, the public got little sense of how far some America's soldiers of fortune were willing to go to achieve their ends. When the Iran-Contra hearings came close to the matter, chair Senator Inouye backed swiftly away. Here is an excerpt from those hearings. Oliver North is at the witness table:

REP BROOKS: Colonel North, in your work at the NSC, were you not assigned, at one time, to work on plans for the continuity of government in the event of a major disaster?

BRENDAN SULLIVAN: Mr. Chairman?

SEN INOUYE: I believe that question touches upon a highly sensitive and classified area so may I request that you not touch on that.

REP BROOKS: I was particularly concerned, Mr. Chairman, because I read in Miami papers, and several others, that there had been a plan developed by that same agency, a contingency plan in the event of emergency, that would suspend the American constitution. And I was deeply concerned about it and wondered if that was the area in which he had worked. I believe that it was and I wanted to get his confirmation.

SEN INOUYE; May I most respectfully request that that matter not be touched upon at this stage. If we wish to get into this, I'm certain arrangements can be made for an executive session

With few exceptions, the media ignored what well could be the most startling revelation to have come out of the Iran/Contra affair, namely that high officials of the US government were planning a possible military/civilian coup. First among the exceptions was the Miami Herald, which on July 5, 1987, ran the story to which Jack Brooks referred. The article, by Alfonzo Chardy, revealed Oliver North's involvement in plans for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to take over federal, state and local functions during an ill-defined national emergency. ..."

[ full article ]

The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012

"It goes without saying (I hope) that the coup scenario above is purely a literary device intended to dramatize my concern over certain contemporary developments affecting the armed forces, and is emphatically not a prediction. -- The Author "

"... In 1992, General Colin Powell, chairman of the joint chiefs, awarded the prize for his strategy essay competition at the National Defence University to Lieutenant Colonel Charles Dunlap for The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012. His cautionary tale imagined an incapable civilian government creating a vacuum that drew a competent military into a coup disastrous for democracy. The military, of course, is bound to uphold the constitution. But Dunlap wrote: "The catastrophe that occurred on our watch took place because we failed to speak out against policies we knew were wrong. It's too late for me to do any more. But it's not for you."

The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012 is today circulating among top US military strategists. ..."

America's military coup
Sidney Blumenthal
The Guardian - Thursday May 13, 2004

The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012

CHARLES J. DUNLAP, JR.

From Parameters, Winter 1992-93, pp. 2-20.

The letter that follows takes us on a darkly imagined excursion into the future. A military coup has taken place in the United States--the year is 2012--and General Thomas E. T. Brutus, Commander-in-Chief of the Unified Armed Forces of the United States, now occupies the White House as permanent Military Plenipotentiary. His position has been ratified by a national referendum, though scattered disorders still prevail and arrests for acts of sedition are underway. A senior retired officer of the Unified Armed Forces, known here simply as Prisoner 222305759, is one of those arrested, having been convicted by court-martial for opposing the coup. Prior to his execution, he is able to smuggle out of prison a letter to an old War College classmate discussing the "Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012." In it, he argues that the coup was the outgrowth of trends visible as far back as 1992. These trends were the massive diversion of military forces to civilian uses, the monolithic unification of the armed forces, and the insularity of the military community. His letter survives and is here presented verbatim.

It goes without saying (I hope) that the coup scenario above is purely a literary device intended to dramatize my concern over certain contemporary developments affecting the armed forces, and is emphatically not a prediction. -- The Author

Dear Old Friend,

It's hard to believe that 20 years have passed since we graduated from the War College! Remember the great discussions, the trips, the parties, the people? Those were the days!!! I'm not having quite as much fun anymore. You've heard about the Sedition Trials? Yeah, I was one of those arrested--convicted of "disloyal statements," and "using contemptuous language towards officials." Disloyal? No. Contemptuous? You bet! With General Brutus in charge it's not hard to be contemptuous.

I've got to hand it to Brutus, he's ingenious. After the President died he somehow "persuaded" the Vice President not to take the oath of office. Did we then have a President or not? A real "Constitutional Conundrum" the papers called it.[1] Brutus created just enough ambiguity to convince everyone that as the senior military officer, he could--and should--declare himself Commander-in-Chief of the Unified Armed Forces. Remember what he said? "Had to fill the power vacuum." And Brutus showed he really knew how to use power: he declared martial law, "postponed" the elections, got the Vice President to "retire," and even moved into the White House! "More efficient to work from there," he said. Remember that?

When Congress convened that last time and managed to pass the Referendum Act, I really got my hopes up. But when the Referendum approved Brutus's takeover, I knew we were in serious trouble. I caused a ruckus, you know, trying to organize a protest. Then the Security Forces picked me up. My quickie "trial" was a joke. The sentence? Well, let's just say you won't have to save any beer for me at next year's reunion. Since it doesn't look like I'll be seeing you again, I thought I'd write everything down and try to get it to you.

I am calling my paper the "Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012." I think it's important to get the truth recorded before they rewrite history. If we're ever going to get our freedom back, we've got to understand how we got into this mess. People need to understand that the armed forces exist to support and defend government, not to be the government. Faced with intractable national problems on one hand, and an energetic and capable military on the other, it can be all too seductive to start viewing the military as a cost-effective solution. We made a terrible mistake when we allowed the armed forces to be diverted from their original purpose.

I found a box of my notes and clippings from our War College days--told my keepers I needed them to write the confession they want. It's amazing; looking through these old papers makes me realize that even back in 1992 we should have seen this coming. The seeds of this outrage were all there; we just didn't realize how they would grow. But isn't that always the way with things like this? Somebody once said that "the true watersheds in human affairs are seldom spotted amid the tumult of headlines broadcast on the hour."[2] And we had a lot of headlines back in the '90s to distract us: The economy was in the dumps, crime was rising, schools were deteriorating, drug use was rampant, the environment was in trouble, and political scandals were occurring almost daily. Still, there was some good news: the end of the Cold War as well as America's recent victory over Iraq.

All of this and more contributed to the situation in which we find ourselves today: a military that controls government and one that, ironically, can't fight. It wasn't any single cause that led us to this point. Instead, it was a combination of several different developments, the beginnings of which were evident in 1992. Here's what I think happened:

Americans became exasperated with democracy. We were disillusioned with the apparent inability of elected government to solve the nation's dilemmas. We were looking for someone or something that could produce workable answers. The one institution of government in which the people retained faith was the military. Buoyed by the military's obvious competence in the First Gulf War, the public increasingly turned to it for solutions to the country's problems. Americans called for an acceleration of trends begun in the 1980s: tasking the military with a variety of new, nontraditional missions, and vastly escalating its commitment to formerly ancillary duties.

Though not obvious at the time, the cumulative effect of these new responsibilities was to incorporate the military into the political process to an unprecedented degree. These additional assignments also had the perverse effect of diverting focus and resources from the military's central mission of combat training and warfighting. Finally, organizational, political, and societal changes served to alter the American military's culture. Today's military is not the one we knew when we graduated from the War College.

Let me explain how I came to these conclusions. In 1992 not very many people would've thought a military coup d'etat could ever happen here. Sure, there were eccentric conspiracy theorists who saw the Pentagon's hand in the assassination of President Kennedy,[3] President Nixon's downfall,[4] and similar events. But even the most avid believers had to admit that no outright military takeover had ever occurred before now. Heeding Washington's admonitions in his Farewell address about the dangers of overgrown military establishments,[5] Americans generally viewed their armed forces with a judicious mixture of respect and wariness.[6] For over two centuries that vigilance was rewarded, and most Americans came to consider the very notion of a military coup preposterous. Historian Andrew Janos captured the conventional view of the latter half of the 20th century in this clipping I saved:

A coup d'etat in the United States would be too fantastic to contemplate, not only because few would actually entertain the idea, but also because the bulk of the people are strongly attached to the prevailing political system and would rise in defense of a political leader even though they might not like him. The environment most hospitable to coups d'etat is one in which political apathy prevails as the dominant style.[7]

However, when Janos wrote that back in 1964, 61.9 percent of the electorate voted. Since then voter participation has steadily declined. By 1988 only 50.1 percent of the eligible voters cast a ballot.[8] Simple extrapolation of those numbers to last spring's Referendum would have predicted almost exactly the turnout. It was precisely reversed from that of 1964: 61.9 percent of the electorate did not vote.

America's societal malaise was readily apparent in 1992. Seventy-eight percent of Americans believed the country was on the "wrong track." One researcher declared that social indicators were at their lowest level in 20 years and insisted "something [was] coming loose in the social infrastructure." The nation was frustrated and angry about its problems.[9]

America wanted solutions and democratically elected government wasn't providing them.[10] The country suffered from a "deep pessimism about politicians and government after years of broken promises."[11] David Finkle observed in The Washington Post Magazine that for most Americans "the perception of government is that it has evolved from something that provides democracy's framework into something that provides obstacles, from something to celebrate into something to ignore." Likewise, politicians and their proposals seemed stale and repetitive. Millions of voters gave up hope of finding answers.[12] The "environment of apathy" Janos characterized as a precursor to a coup had arrived....

[ full paper ]